Vancouver lands Canadian debut of Aaron Sorkin’s latest stage script

Philo Farnsworth, the inventor of television, is played by Michael Smith (left), while RCA founder David Sarnoff (who takes control of the new invention) is played by Yurij Kis (right).Handout
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Philo Farnsworth, the inventor of television, is played by Michael Smith (right), while RCA founder David Sarnoff (who takes control of the new invention) is played by Yurij Kis (left) in The Farnsworth Invention at the Jericho Arts Centre.

The same week Aaron Sorkin’s controversial TV hit The Newsroom returns for a second season on HBO Canada, his latest stage play about the invention of television makes its Canadian debut in Vancouver at the Jericho Arts Centre.

Director Matthew Bissett told The Sun in a phone interview that he’s still in shock that Vancouver’s Ensemble Theatre Company was able to score the debut of The Farnsworth Invention, which premiered on Broadway in 2007, but a likely explanation for why it’s not ending up on too many stages is the cast size.

“I think we were the first people who were crazy enough to ask,” says Bissett with a laugh. “There’s over 150 characters. The original production had 20 actors. We’ve managed to get it down to 12.”

Philo Farnsworth, the inventor of television, is played by Michael Smith, while RCA founder David Sarnoff (who takes control of the new invention) is played by Yurij Kis.

Ten actors share the other 148 parts. Yes, really.

Asked to describe the show, Bissett says: “It’s about how the lone genius of this brilliant farm boy solves the problem of how to make television and then the slow process of large companies taking the invention away from him.”

Sorkin became an American literary star with his playwriting debut, A Few Good Men, then a screenwriting star when he adapted the play for the big screen and when the movie landed a pre-couch jumping Tom Cruise facing off against Jack Nicholson in one of his great later roles.

But when the playwright and screenwriter moved to the world of TV, he became one of TV’s first and only “rock star” writers.

His TV debut, the half-hour sitcom Sports Night, was what’s known as a “cult hit” — which means the critics liked it, but there weren’t enough fans to keep it alive.

But his second show, The West Wing, was a cultural phenomenon.

Sorkin’s new TV series, The Newsroom (which revisits how recent history was made), is one of the most talked about shows on the tube, with haters obsessing over it even more passionately as fans. In his spare time, he’s written a few acclaimed features including Oscar nominee Moneyball and Oscar winner The Social Network.

With The Farnsworth Invention, Sorkin takes his passion for TV to the stage, and he does so with the same kinetic energy that has become his signature for screenplays.

“With some plays I read them and sense the precision of the playwright. Some plays you feel the anger of the writer behind the words; with The Farnsworth Invention I feel Sorkin’s joy,” says Bissett. “He loves writing and he clearly loves television; it’s like he was working on his perfect project.”

Bissett was delighted the moment he’d recreated a variation of Sorkin’s famous and now much-parodied “walk and talk” sequences in his staging.

“I have managed to get one scene where someone walks with a flock of people behind him. That seems to be a signature Sorkin moment.”

One reason Bissett isn’t intimidated by the cast size is that when he’s not directing theatre, he’s frequently directing operas where he’s used to moving a lot of bodies around. Bissett just finished a 10-year stint as artistic director of Burnaby Lyric Opera at the Shadbolt Centre and regularly freelances as an opera stage director. “The nice thing about doing opera is you get used to moving groups of 12 and 15 people around the space.”

Bissett wasn’t that familiar with Sorkin’s work before reading the script and it was the play that caught his attention, not the name of the playwright.

“I read it and said, ‘We have to do this play.’ It’s the kind of play that I love. It’s about an idea, it’s about history and science and it entertains you and teaches you at the same time.”

As if staging a play with 150 characters isn’t a bold enough summer project, The Farnsworth Invention is just one of three shows being mounted in repertory this summer by the two-year-old Ensemble Theatre Company.

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